First Aid cover just doesn’t cut it for events

NHS services are under pressure

With mounting pressures on NHS ambulance trusts and increased waiting times for ambulances, the days of having first aiders alone at events are numbered. It may have only taken a few minutes to have NHS backup at the gates of your event a few years ago, but with increased pressures it is becoming the norm to wait for longer.

First Aid Cover doesn’t cut it

As such event organisers need to way up the risks of having “first aid only” cover. For small events the current industry guidance says organisers should have 2 first aiders per 1000 people. The definition of a first aider is someone who has completed a first aid course, which is usually 2 days long and has some experience in events.

First Aiders are CPR trained

This to many is worrying, imagine you grandmother is at a county show, she collapses after suffering from a heart attack. It may take a few minutes to locate the medical support and for them to reach her, but when they arrive they have training to carry out CPR and that’s about it. Perhaps your daughter is suffering from a stomach ache, a first aider is not going to know whether the patient has a potentially life threatening emergency developing or not.

That’s why at MET Medical we have ditched first aiders completely, sorry to all those who only have a couple of days training. Our staff have months or years of training dealing with routine, urgent and emergency medical problems. When a real medical emergency occurs (NOT if) then we deal with it in the same way as frontline 999 crews, that’s because we deal with them all the time. In terms of cost, MET Medical doesn’t actually cost a huge deal more that the first aid equivalents, however, we offer a huge amount of peace of mind. For high risk events, its becoming the norm for event organisers to have a higher level of medical cover either to meet local regulations or indeed to provide for the actual needs of their participants.

Event Medical Cover is the way forward

If you would like to put the safety and health of your visitors or participants in our hands then please get in touch. We will do our very best to get back to you promptly and efficiently.